Starship Asterisk*

Another Q. about that Perseid picture: These are billed as 'new' stars, but the region is clear of any gas or dust left over from their birth. Pictures of 'star-forming' regions as on the 29th November are dense with cosmic muck! Does all the gas & dust form planets, or is it blown away by the n...

No worries, mate!
Have a go at some of the others above.
John

LapAroscope << lapara (Greek) flank, abdomen. How about a choledochoscope? No Googling! Easier: Hysteroscope Bronchoscope But otoscope/auroscope ISN'T an endoscope, as it doesn't take you inside; nor does a stethoscope! Sorry - bit hijacked, but no less silly than FI's "order & Pattern = ID...

They're all endoscopes, bystander.

It looks like a natural regenerating solid over fluid surface to me. Or, an arthroscopic view of an enlarged bladder. :wink: Ahem! Where did you qualify, doctor? Arthron (Greek) a joint >> Arthroscope Kustis (Greek) a bladder >> Cystis (Latin) >> Cystoscope Of course if you push hard enough on the ...

Ignore the chatter at the back of the class.

"Europa is covered in an ice sheet - could be oceans underneath"
But it's also the size of the Moon.
So those features that cast shadows must be - thousands of meters high?
Ice mountains, or just mountains, covered in ice?

John

Case,
Dd the 1920 encounter push Holmes into this new (?) orbit and will 2051 change it again?
I know you can only surmise, and I won't be here to see if you are right, so guess away!

John

PB, I read that a comet's tail is only 100 times as dense as the space vacuum that suround it. And a quote, "Fred Whipple, of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, is generally considered a parent of our modern understanding of comets. He has succinctly described a comet's tail as th...

Well, the area has certainly grown back now. Google for "Tunguska map" and find several - different! - Google maps that purport to show the site of the explosion. Even a tourist guide to the area, that combines accurate description with red-top speculation! http://www.sibtourguide.com/tung...

It's not that the background was tainted, it couldn't be, but that such a dramatic image as that white streak turned out to be so prosaic. It looks so exciting! The design, an accident obviously but a seredipitous one, is excellent, the star-points, the bright and dim clouds and shapes, with that st...

Today, 16th November 2007, the APOD is the most disappointing ever, real bathos. A splendid starscape, with nebulae, stars large and small (to the eye) and luminous dust clouds. And across it a white streak, narrow, pointed, as dramatic a feature as you could wish for. It has to be a comet or .........

SF - life in a globular cluster. Well, not quite, but Asimov did write 'Nightfall'. As to what it might look like from inside a globular cluster, see: http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/common/images/wallpaper/Globular_Art/globular-800.jpg Lots more lovely images there too! Nightfall Spoiler Alert! A story ...

... His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth..... Ohhh I just couldn't resist. I had to Google that - Revelations 12:1-17 see: http://www.westminsterstpauls.ca/church/file.asp?SER_ID=72 Or of course consult your Bible. Fierce stuff! But a reasonable description...

Look, I'm not claimimg anything for myself, but this is getting more and more significant!

And a star rising in the .......................
Actually, I don't know where Comet Holmes rises.

John the Church of England
(if I'm anything, but I'm not a Baptist)

orin stepanek wrote:The tail has come! :P http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap071105.html; Yah!
Orin

YeeeeeeeeeeeeHA!
Am I a prophet or am I a prophet?

John

Today's APOD (3/11/7) makes the point that the comet is receding, tail first, and happens to have the tail pointing directly away from Earth. Many comets have two tails, one dust, the other plasma (?- electrically charged, anyway) that curves. If we can't see that curving tail, then Holmes doesn't h...

An irrelevant webpage.

John

Go to the APOD for 29th OCt 2007.
Click on "sunglasses".
Works for me.

John

Seems that APOD has just acquired a skittish trait.
See the previous day's APOD (http://www.afscme.org/issues/1363.cfm 29th Oct)) and click on the 'sunglasses' link in the last line.
John

Second Comet Holmes APOD, 29th Oct.

See link to "sunglasses" in last line.

Is this a hack, or has APOD a GSoH?

John

Don't make your self more ridiculous than you are already, CC. A single Google Image search for 'contrails' found the pic on this webpage as second hit. It serves as an example of typical contrails, to show how ill thought is your remark. http://www.scienceblog.org/community/modules.php?op=modload&a...

Great picture, but surely that last gap before the D ring is named after the World's Greatest Detective?
"Just one more question....."

John

gordo, What spledid pics! The last on your website, in blue (moonlight?) are truely weird. But could not this be both 'natural' and the result of a passing aeroplane/ The first above appears to have a straight trail along the cloud before it goes through, and the central wisps seem to extend off in ...

We call that schoolboy humour.

Very funny,CC.

John